What words have I to speak? They are ash in my mouth
by angelofthelightanddark
Summary: Post-chapter 15, pre-chapter 16 of For we are but made of Clay. Because other things are happening with the Archmages while our intrepid heroes are stumbling around in Xaadia. Part 6 of a series. AU.
1. Chapter 1

The stars are bright tonight, Ladwyr thinks, glittering in the dark.

The collar about her throat is heavy, but the weight of it seems to lift a little as she watches the stars. She doesn't know why.

She'd felt the her wards give, and knows that her beloved's pain has ended. Why else would the wards have gone, when he no longer had the power to breach them?

The air shifts behind her, and she doesn't turn, remaining at her seat on the stone bench beneath the wide-boughs of the oak tree.

The magical aura speaks to flame and lava; there's only one person it could be.

Canna visits her often, and Ladwyr thinks that the other Archmage seems almost repentant for her actions towards Ladwyr.

It's not like Ladwyr can raise her voice to say anything about it anyway.

The stars are very bright tonight. Gleaming points of silver, the great constellation of the Illuminated rising high over the hill, chased by the tall antler of the Emerald Stag.

"Ladwyr?" Canna asks, rounding to stand before her.

Ladwyr doesn't look up at her, and it is only when Canna lifts her hands to tilt Ladwyr's head up that she can actually see the Sunfire elf's face.

Ladwyr keeps her face passive, blank. It is easy to do. She's forgotten what it means to smile, anyway.

A spasm of what looks like pain crosses Canna's face.

"Is your mind gone as well as your voice?" she asks, and she drops her hands, stepping back.

Ladwyr just watches her calmly, saying nothing, feeling nothing.

She has felt nothing since the collar latched around her throat, locking away emotion along with her words.

"Ladwyr," Canna says, and there is what Ladwyr considers might be sorrow on her dark face, though it has been a long time indeed since she's seen such emotion on anyone's face that she cannot be certain.

"I-I'm..."

"I regret what I did to you," Canna says, the words rushing out. "I would remove the collar-" she stops, hesitating.

It is rare that Ladwyr has ever seen Canna lost for words. She thinks the her from Before might have found it amusing.

Ladwyr feels nothing, she is weightless, unburdened by emotions. Emotions have weight. She doesn't know how she knows that.

She looks at Canna, looks past her at the stars. At the glittering points of light that shimmer in the ebony dark. They are very bright tonight.

There is a memory, dusted by time, of Aaravos, bright and shining, tracing constellations in the air as they lay in the grass, their hands clasped together.

She had felt weightless then too.

She remembers how he had sung to her, the words crystal and clear despite the passing of the years. Perhaps she had liked it, she cannot say for sure.

"Sing for me, dear heart?" she had asked, and he had, smiling widely, his deep voice resonating through the air; she thinks she might have liked that. It seems like the kind of thing the her of Before had liked.

The collar falls away, tumbling into her lap and Ladwyr looks down, watching how the metal reflects the stars.

"Ladwyr-" Canna says again, then stops as Samos seems to appear from thin air, wings flaring out as they land beside Ladwyr.

"Leave us," Samos orders, their yellow eyes ablaze with anger, "You've done _enough_, Canna."

"I removed the collar," Canna hisses, all traces of regret gone from her hard face, "Be glad I did even that."

She turns on her heel, crossing the hill to vanish over its crest.

Samos snarls something under their breath, and kneels before Ladwyr, taking her hands in their own.

"Can you speak?" they ask softly, and there are tears in their eyes now.

Ladwyr says nothing. Her voice is trapped within her throat, chained even as her physical chains have been broken.

Samos bows their head, a half-chocked sob barely audible.

Ladwyr lifts her hand, carding her fingers idly through their dark hair. Samos freezes under the touch for a moment then bursts into sobs, harsh and gasping.

They cling to her, and Ladwyr continues to stroke their hair, and all the while the moon rises higher, bathing them in soft light.

It's past midnight when Samos has managed to stop crying and settled beside her, head resting against her shoulder.

Their horns are midnight dark, a stark contrast to Ladwyr's snow white.

The Ghost Archmage, some have called her.

Ladwyr reaches up, towards the moon, and reaches for the Arcanum to give her strength.

Her magic shifts and from the way Samos jerks back from her as if stung, they can feel it too.

Power wells in her hands as she settles her palms against her neck.

_Heal, _she thinks.

"Ladwyr-!" Samos hisses in warning, and then agony sets in.

She topples off the bench, shrieking in silent pain, unable to move her hands away.

Her own magic is _burning _her.

She writhes, and Samos is next to her, pulling her hands back. "Ladwyr, let go of the Arcanum! Let the magic go!"

She can't, she tries to say, the words still trapped in her throat, the magic is part of her. She is made of it and it wants to **destroy** her.

Samos glows with their own magic, and...everything stops for Ladwyr, the agony, the fear, _everything_ just _stops._

They are held within the heart of a hurricane and Samos shoves Ladwyr's magic back, an emotion that Ladwyr struggles to identify on their face as they hold on to her.

"This will not destroy you, O Ladwyr, Daughter of the Moon, Protector of the Shadow-elves, you are Protector of your people," Samos murmurs. "Let the Arcanum go. You have been blinded from its radiance too long. You must reach slowly."

Ladwyr stares at them. The words take a moment to click together into a sentence that she understands.

"Aaravos would not want you to suffer as he no doubt suffered," Samos says softly and then Ladwyr realizes.

Samos had loved Aaravos too. And they had felt their wards give, just the same as Ladwyr had.

Ladwyr chokes on her sob, the emotions long held back suddenly rolling in like a moon-swept tide.

A wordless wail escapes her, the magic skittering away from her grasp, the pain blown away with its release.

She keens, wailing for what is now lost to her, what is lost to Samos, what is lost to the world. There would never be another like Aaravos, who had been Morning Star of his people.

The best and brightest of the Archmages, a star in elven form.

_And he was dead._

Ladwyr screams, the sound echoing out across the plains, amplified by her grief.

Thunder rumbles overhead, lightening splitting the darkening heavens, hiding the stars from sight.

Ladwyr cries, clinging to Samos, who is crying again too.

Rain patters on the leaves of the oak tree; nature reflecting Samos's magic in a way that Ladwyr's never could.

Ladwyr just cries, and cries, because she can do nothing else. Her love is lost and she cannot even offer the proper funerary rites so that his soul may return to the Stars, and one day be again reborn.

Dimly, she is aware of Samos singing, their voice shaky and trembling, a Skywing song of mourning, and Ladwyr slowly, slowly adds her voice to theirs.

She can at least do this, she thinks.

_Oh, Blessed Stars, fore-mothers of us all, guide this child of your blood home, this shining Morning Star, Aaravos of the Star-touched, and give him peace until his rebirth._


	2. Chapter 2

_Ladwyr winces as the ragged edges of the injury press together beneath her fingers, the wetness of her friend's blood hot on her skin._

_She's a healer, yes, but Startouch elves are a race apart from hers, no matter how many similarities between their cultures. Healing Aaravos is always a trial in its own right._

"_You should be more careful," she mutters, weaving magic through the wound, wincing again as the blood trickles down her hands._

_Aaravos is still, unmoving, his radiance dimmed so she can see his true eyes, golden irises set into a sea of ebony._

"_I am careful," he says quietly. The sweet, rolling syllables of Ladwyr's mother tongue are usually balm to her soul, but not today._

"_Not careful enough," Ladwyr snaps, "if that spell had been just a little lower, she would have slashed your throat open, and all the gods in the heavens would not have been enough to keep you alive in time for me to get to you!"_

_Aaravos is silent, though Elarion, who is quivering by the door, makes a low whimper._

"_Foolish child," Ladwyr hisses at her, the human words like rocks in her mouth, harsh and choking. "Do not attempt such a thing again; you are not ready for its power."_

_Elarion's bright eyes are glistening with tears._

"_Ladwyr," Aaravos says, one hand grasping her wrist, "Your words are too sharp. She is yet a child."_

"_I care not," Ladwyr spits, "she could have **killed** you!"_

"_And she did not," Aaravos says softly, "She will learn. She has been hurt enough today. Do not add to her sorrows."_

_Elarion darts out of the room, agony clear on her young face._

_Ladwyr purses her lips._

"_Ladwyr," Aaravos murmurs, tilting his head as the healing magic does its work, smoothing away the injury as if it had never been._

_Ladwyr ignores him, wiping her hands clean of his blood only for Aaravos to catch both of her hands as she makes to move away._

_He stands up, a little wobbly from the blood loss. He towers over her by almost a full foot. Startouch elves are tall, lithe beings, with an otherworldly radiance, that no other elf race has._

_Born from the hands of the brightest star in the sky, or so the stories said. This close to him, cloaked in his shadow, Ladwyr is very aware of how much Aaravos has dimmed his own radiance, so as to not blind the human._

_Now though, she watches as that shine returns, warm and bright, masking his golden eyes in glittering white._

"_Ladwyr," he says again, holding her hands, lifting them to his lips to press a delicate kiss to the knuckles. "Thank you for healing me."_

"_Well," Ladywr says, flushing, "you're not great with healing yourself. Someone has to keep an eye on you."_

"_You are a kind soul, Ladwyr," Aaravos says softly. "Would that you might share such kindness with Elarion as well."_

_Ladwyr scowls. "She reaches too far for power she cannot yet contain. She has not learned patience and it will be her downfall one day."_

_There is a sharpness to her words, a tinge of prophecy she doesn't like._

_Aaravos hums, "She will learn patience in time as many do."_

"_Many, but not all," Ladwyr cautions. "And she is human; they are an impulsive race. We've seen that time and again." _

_Aaravos is contemplative for a moment. "No doubt she will be less impulsive now than she was before. Injury has a way of making one wary."_

_Ladwyr sighs. _

"_Will you be kind to her, Ladwyr?" Aaravos asks. _

_Ladwyr frowns, the sharpness of her anger and the fear that had bubbled up inside of her when she had seen Aaravos fall, his blood pouring out was still too near the surface._

"_I will be civil," she says at length, "it was a very near thing, Aaravos. I cannot forget the sight so easily."_

"_Of course," Aaravos says, his eyes soft and warm._

Ladwyr wakes up slowly, clinging to the remnants of memory as she blinks into the morning sunlight.

Tawny feathers flicker at the edges of her vision and Ladwyr squints upwards, finding Samos looking down at her.

"Did you sleep well?" they ask.

Ladwyr shrugs.

She thinks that they look just as bad as she feels.

It's so strange to be able to feel things again, like regaining usage of a limb long numbed.

She wants to cry and laugh and wail all at once. It is very confusing.

Samos hugs her, wings enfolding her in a tight embrace.

"Let's get away from here," Samos says. "Sound good?"

Ladwyr nods.

Samos lets go and pulls her upright, "Come on."

They walk rather than fly, hand in hand, towards the towering Spines that lie on the coast of Xadia. The sun is warm against her skin and though Ladwyr feels as if she is in the midst of a hurricane, spun by the swirling eddies of her long-blocked emotions, there is still a sense of something pulling her towards the Spines, giving her a purpose past her grief.

Something is there, calling out to her.

Ladwyr isn't sure what to feel about it.

She knows that something has changed. The humans have been reported to be moving against the border, the dragons in their great halls have begun to stir, magic itself seems restless.

It seems to whisper to her, even now, _change is coming-_

She looks up at the sky and stops dead in her tracks, pulling Samos with her.

It's almost noon, no star should be visible in the sky...but there is one.

The Morning Star shines impossibly bright, glowing like the Sun itself.

"Gods above," Samos whispers. "Do you think-?"

Ladwyr just looks at it, a kind of awed terror filling her. It is a sign; it must be.

There is again that pull towards the Spines and this time Samos hisses, jerking their head back to look at the mountains, where clouds gather atop the highest peaks, a sure sign of bad weather approaching.

"Did you feel that?" they ask.

Ladwyr nods.

"Do you want me to carry you?" Samos asks, "we'll go faster."

Ladwyr nods again.

Samos scoops her up in a bridal carry and takes off with breathtaking speed. They're one of the fastest Skywing elves, and being an Archmage means that the winds are theirs to command.

Ladwyr can feel the tug of Sky magic as Samos bends the winds around them, making the world whirl past, a blur of motion.

Something is happening within the Spines, and she _needs _to see it. Every fiber of her being needs to know what it is that stirs the magic of the world so, that causes even the mighty dragon Queen to rise from her palace and roam Xadia's skies.

Grief will not stop her from her duty as Archmage; she gave an oath on magic itself, on her life, that she would protect her people, even if they still shunned her.

"Almost there," Samos murmurs in her ear, audible over the rushing of the winds.

They descend.


End file.
